


Played for a Fool

by BuzzCat



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, IF YOU WANT TO WRITE THE REAL STORY OF THIS YOU HAVE MY BLESSING LET ME KNOW BC I WANT TO READ IT, Meta, Plot, Rumplestiltskin AU, ShieldShock - Freeform, because I have no chill and don't want to actually write this story you get the meta/plot-version, the summary sounds porny but this isn't at all sorry guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8747074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuzzCat/pseuds/BuzzCat
Summary: fabulousflutterings asked: Shieldshock, for the story you'll never write!
Steve is prepared to make a deal, whatever deal he has to, to get Bucky back. When he hears stories of a deal-making creature in the depths of the forest, Steve grabs his shield and heads in, prepared to trade whatever he has to. Of course, what he thinks he'll trade and what she wants are not the same thing at all.





	

_**fabulousflutterings asked: Shieldshock, for the story you'll never write!** _

* * *

 

Ah yes, the Rumplestiltskin AU that I didn’t know I wanted until this exact moment

Okay, Bucky falls of the train. Steve, of course, angsts all over the place. Steve gets back to wherever the hell Peggy finds him drinking in the movie, spends a week absolutely drowning in tragic nostalgia, before he starts hearing whispers. Old stories the locals in tiny town tell to their children. About making deals for your heart’s desire, for a price.

So Steve is somewhere drinking and getting not-drunk when he hears someone telling a story about an old well, deep in the forest outside town. A well that marks the meeting place between this world and the faerie realm, a place where magic sparkles on the leaves of the trees. A well where wishes come true and sooner or later, the wish-maker wishes they hadn’t.

Steve, being Steve, is not known for his amazing concern about his own well-being. Steve slams whatever he’s drinking, grabs his shield and the period-appropriate version of a Powerbar, and starts trekking through the forest. Maybe leaves Peggy a note or something because he knows she’d try to stop him and she has really good “I’m disappointed in you Rogers” eyes.

Steve goes wandering through the woods, trying to hunt down this fucking well. He leaves after dinner and walks through the night because again, Steve’s concern for his own well-being is only slightly more existent than Steve’s patience. And as he walks the trees get taller, the light gets dimmer, and the animal sounds start crawling closer. And he’s got 20/20 vision, but even super soldiers can’t see in the pitch dark of a forest at night. As he walks, he starts to feel eyes on him. He’s worked with enough snipers, been targeted by enough snipers, he knows what eyes feel like when they’re tracking him. But he can’t stop to fight because he can’t even see what he’s fighting, he’d end up having a half-hour match with a tree or something.

Eventually, Steve comes upon a small clearing containing what could be a well, could be a decayed tree stump. He stares down and before he can even open his mouth to make a wish, he hears a voice just beyond his line of sight, “You lost, soldier?” The voice sounds like a curling red smile, like charcoal hissing on paper, like what is ultimately a bad idea. He spins around but there’s no one there. Looks back down the well, but this time there’s a shadow beside his. He looks up and into the face of a girl. Well, a dame. The kind of dame Bucky would have asked out, the kind that looked like she could eat you alive and you’d thank her for it. She may be some kind of wish-granting evil fairy, but Steve’s mama raised him right and that means you take your hat off when you speak to a lady,

“Ma’am,” he says. The woman snorts,

“’Ma’am’. Young man, no one has called me ma’am since before you were born. My name is Darcy. What are you doing wandering my forest at this time of night, soldier?”

“Captain Rogers, ma’a--Darcy. I’d like to make a deal.” He explains what he wants: Bucky back, alive and well. In return, he’ll take his place. Darcy clicks her tongue and says “No can do, Cap.” Steve offers her his shield, touting its virtues as a glorified murder Frisbee. She feels the weight of it, glides her hand over it, appreciates it for all its worth. Hands it back, clicking her tongue, “It sure is beautiful, but it’s not what I want.” She steps closer to him, so quickly so close her bare feet almost touch the toes of his boots. She gets right up in his face and pokes him the chest, “In time, I will come for you. I will ask you for your help, and you will give it to me. In short, you’ll owe me a favor.”

“And what kind of nature might this favor entail?” Steve isn’t a fool, he knows blanket statements like this are not a good plan but to be fair, it’s not like he has a lot else he can promise her.

Darcy replies with a little twist to her mouth, “It is somewhat of the to-be-announced nature.”

“Deal.” Steve says. He sticks out his hand but Darcy’s doesn’t shake it. She laughs and snaps her fingers. Steve feels something move past him, giving him goosebumps, but it was probably just the wind. When he looks up, Darcy is walking away. He takes a step forward, to ask where the hell Bucky is, but she’s already melted into the trees.

The next day, as Steve is about to leave town, he sees Darcy walk into whatever the general store is in that part of the world. People are talking with her, laughing with her, like she fits right in. He points her out to someone and is told she’s a local shop owner. “She makes a mean deal, but she’s fair about it.” Steve feels like he’s just been duped, angsts all over again, and goes off to fight. He puts the plane in the ice still thinking that a deal hasn’t been made.

When he wakes up, he spends a lot of time in the gym. Breaks a lot of punching bags, thinking about everything he lost. Thinking about Bucky. Sometimes he thinks about that one time he got played for a sucker by a local village girl.

“We made a deal, Captain Rogers.” The voice is like a curled grin, but now he can hear a military edge to it. He snaps around to look and sure enough, Darcy’s leaning against the wall, in knitwear and skinny jeans but still the same dame he met in a forest seventy years ago. She pushes off the wall and walks closer to him. Something about her puts Steve in the mind of a cat cornering a mouse. For the first time in seventy years, Steve starts to think that maybe he’s the one who’s been played for a fool. He knows that whatever Darcy is, by now it sure as hell isn’t human. She’s an evil wish-granting fairy who may or may not have brought his friend back from the dead, and Steve owes her a favor. He falls into parade rest,

“What do you need from me, ma’am?”

“I need you to save the world, Captain.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want, leave me a pairing and a hypothetical title in the review box and I'll tell you about the story I won't write. My tumblr is buzz-cat.tumblr.com so definitely come talk there too if you have requests! Hope you enjoyed reading this, because I definitely enjoyed writing it!


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